As in 2006, it doesn’t feel like a boom.
Some Republicans are making the case that the economy is much stronger than the press and the polls make it out to be. Today’s column goes into what they get right — and why voters don’t seem to care.
One theme of recent political commentary has been that this campaign season bears a lot of resemblance to the one 20 years ago. I go into that too, writing that in 2006 Republicans
were going into a Republican president’s second midterm with majorities in both chambers of Congress. Then, as now, voters were reacting against corruption, an unpopular war and high gas prices. Republicans pointed to several positive indicators, including a low unemployment rate and a respectable level of economic growth. My friend Larry Kudlow, an economic commentator, called the boom “the greatest story never told,” a label he is using again this year.
Yet for most people, it didn’t feel like a boom: Their paychecks didn’t go as far as they had five years earlier. The president lost popularity, and Republicans lost the House and the Senate.